PRACTICAL ACTION and SUSTAINABILITY IN D&T

Practical Action is an international development agency work that works in different parts of the world to help poor people help themselves out of poverty using their skills, resources and knowledge. It also works in the UK education sector to help teachers and students to understand the implications of their choices as consumers and designer-makers for people living elsewhere in the world now and for future generations.

For the past ten years the education team has developed resources for secondary D&T, (e.g. STEP and the Sustainable Design Award), culminating in the highly successful Sustainability Handbook. Practical Action offers access to a free D&T website (www.practicalaction.org.uk/education), half-termly e-resource sustainability updates (available by signing up from the website) and training days on how to incorporate sustainability into existing schemes of work. Our recent work is designed specifically to help teachers to deal with the sustainability issues included in the new GCSE syllabuses from September 2009. For further details contact us by email, education@practicalaction.org.uk or by telephone, 01926-634519/634441.

Practical Action is running two Sustainability in D&T courses at its Rugby offices on July 7 and 14. They are intended to help teachers deal with sustainability and values issues in the new 2009 specifications with confidence. They offer a range of ideas and activities that enable students to understand and use different aspects of sustainability, including the different dimensions, the six RS, eco-design tools and life cycle analysis.

PRACTICAL ACTION – Resources

To help students to understand the requirements of the new specifications, we have created downloadable resources for each of the main focus areas. There are photocopiable links on all the pages that contain student activities as well as teachers notes identified by a ? in the top right hand corner.

Each resource looks at some inspirational designs, considers social, economic, environmental and cultural issues, explains how life cycle analysis is useful in identifying the impact of a product, and helps develop an understanding of the six Rs.

http://practicalaction.org/?id=gcse_resources